


Full Disclosure

by IntelligentAirhead



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith is Going to Fight his Emotions in a Car Park, Love Confessions, M/M, Open and honest communication, Pining, Trans Characters, cuddling for warmth, neurodivergent characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8454568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntelligentAirhead/pseuds/IntelligentAirhead
Summary: Keith is impulsive and straightforward when it comes to most things, and emotions are no exception. It's no surprise, then, that when he realises that he might have developed a crush on Lance, he tries to tell him immediately.Unfortunately, it's very hard to account for both circumstance and who Lance is as a person.Alternatively: Four Times Keith Tried to Confess and One Time Lance Actually Understood





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinelanguage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinelanguage/gifts), [morvish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/gifts), [obstinateRixatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinateRixatrix/gifts).



> It occurred to me the other day that I'd never actually written a +1 fic, and I desperately needed to check that off my bucket list. Thousands of words later, here I am. Hope you enjoy!

As time went on, it became more and more apparent that the only reason the castle had been pristine when Team Voltron first arrived was because everyone living in it had been asleep for ten thousand years. Sure, Coran would usually corral someone (Lance) into helping him clean one part or another, but it was just one small victory in a losing war. 

It wasn’t that the castle was dirty. Not like Keith was used to, anyway. Not all caked with dust and dirt and age like the shack had been, and if that wasn’t hilarious considering how much older the castle was, well… Maybe he just had a weird sense of humor. 

Keith ran his hand along the side of the wall, feeling the smooth, seamless texture of it. He looked at his hand. No dust. He wasn’t expecting to see any, really.

The castle definitely wasn’t dirty. It was just  _ messy _ in a way that didn’t seem possible considering how massive it was. A walk down any given hallway could reveal Pidge slumped against a window, napping in lieu of actual sleep, blankets strewn around her like she’d made an attempt at building a makeshift cubicle before giving up and passing out. Keith could open a room he didn’t know existed and find Hunk, Lance, and two of the mice building a fort that Hunk insisted was structurally sound just before Lance canonballed into it. 

Keith knew what a space looked like when someone lived in it. He’d just never seen it look like this, where it was hard to figure out where one person’s space ended and another’s began, and figuring out who made what mess depended less on empirical evidence and more on interrogating mice as witnesses at the dinner table, being the only unbiased party.

Of course, there were exceptions. 

Keith stared down at the shoes that lay right in the middle of the hallway, like someone had decided to play at guard, then either wandered off out of boredom or turned themself invisible. The shoes were distinctive grey hiking boots, and if their location hadn’t been enough to give their owner away, the blue stripes would have done the job. 

The question of why Lance was the way he was continued to be a question for the ages.

Eventually, Hunk came along, breaking Keith’s staring contest with the shoes. “Hey, Keith,” they called, “I just ran those coordinates through a—Whoa!”  

In a new feat of accidental sabotage, Lance had somehow managed to trip his best friend without even being present. Incredible. 

Keith winced, reaching out his hand to pull Hunk up from where they were staring down at the shoes with the stunned hurt of a dog that had run straight into a glass door.  “You alright?” He asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Hunk said, still projecting undiluted betrayal. “Why are those there?” They blinked up at Keith, expression shifting. “Okay, no judgement if you happen to be like, gluing Lance’s shoes to the floor or something, but the middle of the hallway isn’t the best place for that, and considering he’s my best friend, I should probably—”

“Hunk,” Keith said, holding his hands up, palms flat in a pacifying gesture, “calm down. I wasn’t the one who left them here.”

Hunk stared at him for a second, then sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense. You usually just tell Lance when he’s being a butt.” They looked thoughtfully at the shoes. “I, on the other hand, live my life as passive aggressively as possible, so I’m just gonna…” Picking up the shoes, they got to their feet. “Yeah. Here goes Mission: Either Lance Starts Cleaning or I Will.”

“That going to work?” Keith asked, skeptical.

Hunk snorted. “Worked just fine when we were roommates. Eventually he’d run out of clothes. It was either agree to start picking up after himself, or go to class in his underwear.”

“So, if I see Lance’s shoes around…”

“Just drop them off by my bunk,” Hunk said. “Or you can join in and start your own hoard. I know for sure that Pidge is already in on it, but that’s mostly a revenge thing for Lance taking her headphones.”

Keith considered it, then nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

All things considered, it didn’t take long for everyone else to join in. Once, Keith even saw Shiro pick up a discarded shoe, look back at Keith, grin sheepishly, and raise a finger to his mouth in the universal signal for secrecy. However, that also meant it didn’t take long to collect every piece of footwear Lance could possibly have at his disposal.

Which meant the plan should have been a success. Would have, too, if Lance wasn’t who he was as a person. 

The plan was marked as a catastrophic failure barely a few hours after the last slipper had been collected. Most of the team was settling around the table in preparation for lunch; Pidge and Coran were arguing over sampling sizes or something— Hunk interjecting bits of information in between setting plates down—  while Shiro and Allura were talking about whether more calibration was needed on the castle’s defenses. Keith was about to add in his two cents when it happened.

Lance slid into the room. He didn’t walk. He didn’t run. He slid. “Hey, guys!” He chirped, pushing off so that he kept moving, sliding ever closer. “What are we having today?”

Everyone stared at him for a long moment. They should have known better; that only ever encouraged him. 

“Are you…” Hunk opened their mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Are you just wearing socks?”

“Funny you should ask!” Lance said, sliding into the seat next to Keith. As in, he barreled into it, then sat down. “All of my shoes seem to keep mysteriously vanishing! And whadaya know, this morning I couldn’t find any of them at all! However!” He brandished a finger in the air, wiggling it. “Science finds a way! Turns out, the floors are just the right texture to make socks a great— and I’m going to repeat that because they’re just that fantastic— a  _ great  _ decision. I’ve never had more fun in my life. I may never need shoes again.”

And that was when Lance grinned at them, a shit-eating expression of smug delight because he was being an  _ asshole _ , and he knew it, and he looked so pleased with himself that Keith started laughing anyway which made it  _ worse _ because Lance turned to face him. 

Lance turned to face him, and his eyes crinkled around the edges, his smile widening as he started to laugh too, and Keith looked at him and felt something warm and affectionate spread through and  _ settle _ , and fuck, he’d have to bottle that up like a molotov cocktail.

Which might have had a chance of working if Keith wasn’t Keith, molotov cocktails weren’t meant to be hurled through the air, and some asshole hadn’t made it so humans couldn’t eject their own feelings. It wasn’t that Keith didn’t try. It was just that his method of compartmentalization had less to do with tucking emotions away in boxes that were never to be touched again, and more to do with throwing them at the problem until it went away. And throwing molotov cocktails at people never seemed to go well, emotional or otherwise. 

But fuck if Keith was going to let anything fester, and that only left one option. He’d tell Lance, Lance would reject him in the most excruciatingly embarrassing and complex way possible completely by accident, and they’d both move on and go back to being teammates with minimal emotional weirdness. 

Hopefully.

 

* * *

 

Lance was out on the observation deck a lot. 

Keith would see him there sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep and had nothing better to do than walk the length and breadth of the ship. The weirdest part was how Lance didn’t face the door, instead staring up at the spinning points of light from the center of the room, knees tucked beneath his chin. Keith couldn’t fathom how anyone could sit like that, back exposed, completely distracted.Then again, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand about Lance.

Keith took a breath, then walked into the observation deck.

Lance swivelled around on his ass, too fast and too startled, looking like a surprised owl. “Keith?” He asked, voice pitching up. “Why are you— This is my  _ me time _ ,” he finished, scandalised. 

Keith couldn’t help it. He snorted. “Me time?”

“Okay, no. You of all people do not get to question me time. Not when you have a shrine built to it somewhere in the Sonoran Desert.”

“A shrine to— You mean my shack?” Keith asked, sitting down beside him.

“I mean what I say and I say what I mean,” Lance said, crossing his arms with a sniff. Which should not have been endearing. Keith was going to kick his own brain’s ass.

“Of course you do. Which is why you said that you’d rather light yourself on fire than see another desert planet, then started flirting with the princess of a system made up of only desert planets, right?”

“Listen,” Lance started. This was going to be good. “I’m a changed man,” he said.

“It was last week,” Keith said.

“Okay, but listen,” Lance insisted, grinning in a way that meant he knew he was being ridiculous. “I’ve grown since then.”

“Of course,” Keith said, snorting. “How could I possibly have doubted you?”

Lance barked out a single laugh. “Like you usually do, probably.” 

What. “What?”

Lance looked at Keith, his face shifting into something confused and tentative. He shifted position so he was sitting with his legs crossed, facing away slightly. “You know,” he said. 

“No?” Keith responded. “I really don’t, actually. What are you talking about?”

Lance let loose an uncomfortable chuckle. “Keith, I know that we’re teammates and everything,” he started, which couldn’t lead to anywhere good. “But you don’t have to pretend to like being around me.”

_ What. _

“What,” Keith asked, “are you  _ even _ talking about right now?” He almost stood up, then thought better of it and slumped back down. “Of course I like being around you! I like you!” Which wasn’t how Keith pictured that particular confession going, but damn if Lance didn’t switch out all of Keith’s plans for his own half the time anyway.

Lance blinked at Keith, slack jawed. “What are you— But we argue? All the time!”

“Oh my god,” Keith muttered. Why did he have to like this… this _ Lance _ . Of all people. He could have had a crush on Hunk. Then he might not be in a perpetual state of wanting to tear his hair out from sheer exasperation! “We haven’t actually argued in weeks! We’ve actually been getting along! And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, considering you’ve somehow ignored everything else, but you’re fun to be around when you’re not actively trying to be a jackass!”

“I do _ not _ try to be a—”

“Yes! You do! I can tell because every time that we’re having fun together and actually acting like friends, you throw up a wall! You’re trying to push me away, and I don’t know why!” 

Lance opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked away, his jaw working. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “I— Okay. I might be stuck a few steps behind here. Like always.” He chuckled, despite the joke not seeming very funny. 

“Why do you do that?” Keith asked.

Lance looked up, startled. “Do what?”

“You make jokes like— You always act like I think you’re not as good as me or something, and you’re either angry at me for opinions  _ I don’t have, _ or you’re making jokes about it!” Did Keith come off as that shitty of a person?

Apparently, considering the stunned look on Lance’s face. “Okay, back up. I  _ know _ I’m great, but… So, you don’t think I’m holding the team back?”

“No! How could you even— Lance! Do you even know how many times you’ve come up with a plan that works? Sure, you’re not Pidge; you can’t pull algorithms and blueprints out of nowhere, but you… You pull things together. You’re an important part of the team.”

“You think I’m— Okay. So.” Lance’s expression shifted so quickly it was hard to keep track of where he was going. “You don’t think I’m useless.”

How many times would he have to repeat himself. “What will it take for you to realise that I like you?”

Lance gaped at him. There it was. Out in the open. And Lance looked like a goldfish. “You like me,” he said, looking like the words didn’t fit right in his mouth. “You said earlier… Okay. You really, actually want to be friends?”

And that may not have been what Keith was trying to say, but god, if Lance hadn’t even thought they were friends, he’d take it. “Lance,” Keith said, closing his eyes for a moment. “We  _ are _ friends.”

Lance sat back for a moment, and Keith was almost afraid he’d decide to hop to his feet and run off then and there. “We’re friends,” Lance said. Then he repeated it. “We’re  _ friends _ . Holy crow.”

Keith let out what must have been the longest sigh of his life. “Unbelievable,” he said, leaning back until he was resting on his elbows. “Yes, we’re friends.”

“No take-backs!” Lance announced, as if he wasn’t the one who’d repeatedly been throwing up barriers. Then, he flopped back so that he was lying on the floor. “Not even if after all this you decide you want to brood alone in the desert. You can’t play a game of slap with a hand of friendship like that.”

Keith let out a slow, long, deep breath, staring up at the swirling nebula that floated above them. “I won’t if you won’t.”

 

* * *

 

Missions had a tendency to go wrong all at once. So far, Team Voltron did a pretty good job of surviving despite that. Still, Keith didn’t think it was too much to ask for things to go to shit somewhere other than in increasingly fragile tunnel systems.

His comms crackled to life just as he finished herding a group of panicked refugees into Red. “Keith.” Hunk’s voice was strained and warped by interference over the comms, but still recognizable. “Keith,” they repeated, “come in.”

“Hunk? Little busy right—”

“Thank god. You’re okay. That’s— That’s good.” Hunk’s breath set the comms crackling, and Keith fought the urge not to rip off his helmet at the sound. Misophonia or no, he had to keep in contact. 

“Hunk, what’s wrong?”

“Lance isn’t answering his comms.”

Keith hadn’t ever understood the phrase ‘blood running cold’. Not until he felt his spine stiffen and lock, his head jerking back toward where the tunnels were caving in. Towards the spot where Lance had told him evacuation would be more effective if they split up. “Understood,” he said into the microphone. “I’ll try to get ahold of him.

Keith turned to where the last of the refugees were piling into Red. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Stay inside the lion. You’ll be safe.”

Then he started running back towards the cave-in, tuning to Lance’s frequency on the comms as he went. “Lance! Lance! Come in! I repeat, if you can hear me, come in!” There was only static.

Then, after what seemed like eternity, Keith found him. 

Lance was sitting against a wall, only a few meters from blue, his helmet nestled next to him, sporting a crack large enough to make Keith wince. What was worse was the dried blood matted in his hair. “Hey, it’s Keith,” Lance said blearily. “That’s— Oh. I was about to say that’s nice. But it’s really, really not, is it?” Lance groaned. “I’m gonna be in trouble.”

“Are you alright?” Keith asked, crouching down. “What happened?”

“Got hit by a rock. Wouldn’t… Would not recommend that.” Lance shook his head, then winced. “Okay, I’m just… not gonna do that again. Because that hurt. A Lot.”

“Hey, look at me. Lance. Look at me,” Keith said, reaching out to turn Lance’s head, trying to avoid the injured area. 

Lance stared in Keith’s general direction, but it lacked focus. Keith couldn’t tell if it was from pain or if he was concussed, and wasn’t sure he remembered how to tell the difference. They could deal with that later though. Just then, the priority was getting Lance out of the tunnels.

“Hunk, I found Lance, but I don’t think he’s in any state to fly out of here,” Keith reported over the comms. 

Lance blinked, then glared at Keith. “Blue can do it,” he said. “She barely needs me half the time. She— She can do it.” 

Keith looked uncertainly at Lance, then set his jaw. “Did you hear that, Hunk?”

“Barely. Was that Lance? Is he— You said he was in no shape to— What does that mean, exactly? He’s not dead, right? Please tell me he’s not dead.”

“No, he’s not dead.”

“Wish I was,” Lance groaned. 

“You stop that,” Keith said. “We’ve got it handled, Hunk. See you back at the castle.”

“Right,” they answered, the uncertainty in their voice clear even through the cloud of interference. “See you there.”

That done, Keith wrapped Lance’s arm around his neck, hoisting him up. “Where are the refugees?” He asked, the thought finally occurring to him.

“Inside Blue,” Lance answered. His face wrinkled up in what Keith thought was pain. But then he opened his mouth. “Hey, Keith. Would you say we’re in a  _ rocky  _ situation?”

Keith laughed despite himself. “Why are you— This isn’t the time, Lance.”

“But it made you laugh,” Lance observed smugly. “So I win.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, sighing. He smiled at Lance, feeling far too fond of the human disaster holding onto him than should reasonably be allowed. “You win.”

 

* * *

 

Cold was meant to be experienced in certain ways. A nice breeze on a hot day? Acceptable. An ice pack on sore muscles? Great. Fine. Air conditioning in the desert? Fantastic. Keith could deal with the cold as a welcome reprieve. He could. Even snow was fine for the two entire seconds it existed before it melted and turned into ugly slush and ice, just waiting to cause traffic accidents.

Blizzards, on the other hand, were just excessive. It meant being buried in a ton of white bullshit that went from pretty to dangerous within a third of a second, cold seeping in and settling into his bones until he ached, not to mention some painful windy bullshit. His nose ached, so his sinuses ached, so his  _ head ached _ . And to top it all off! The air was making Keith’s face hurt!  He shouldn’t have to be somewhere where the goddamned air made his face hurt!

At the very he least, he was safe from freezing to death out in the snow and having to live with the knowledge that any future red paladin would be short a uniform and bayard. Instead, he’d probably freeze to death inside a cave, making his corpse more easily retrievable. Keith had made peace with that resolution after walking the length of the breadth of the cave had come up short, punching the wall had done jack shit, and trying to psychically page Red hadn’t panned out. However, no matter how resigned he was to dying in a Neolithic meat locker— no, this was an alien planet, so just… A really cold cave. No matter how resigned he was to dying in a really, really cold cave, he reserved the right to be a bitter ghost haunting his team— no, fuck, that would be a bit too King Alfor for anyone’s comfort, and it’d just generally be a dick move. He’d haunt the cave instead. Easier for everyone. He’d put together a solid plan, and he was going to stick with it.

Except that was never the case.

“Keith? Buddy? Is that you?” The moment Lance came into view, he let out something that sounded like a chuckle, but there was something about it it that didn’t quite fit right. “Of course it’s— Yeah, there’s nothing else red on the entire— Are you okay?”

“How did you get here?” Keith asked, face scrunching up in bewilderment,

“Never mind; you’re obviously fine.” Lance sighed, looking down at him. “As soon as the Klevun tried to ask us for ransom, the nerd squad got to work triangulating your location. Honestly, I’m a little terrified that Pidge can track us down this easily.”

“Pidge is terrifying,” Keith said, smiling.

“Why are you proud of that, you enabler?” Lance blew out a breath, flopping down next to Keith. “I swear, you two just make each other worse.”

“Where _ is _ Pidge?” Keith asked. “And everyone else, actually?”

Lance made a face. “We have really bad luck with tunnels.”

Ah.

“I’ve noticed,” Keith said, letting his head fall back against the wall of the cave. “So, we’re stuck. Great.”

“Only for a little while! Probably. We won’t freeze to death, at least.” Sure, Lance wouldn’t. He hadn’t been trapped as long as Keith.

Keith stared him down, trying to communicate as much doubt as possible. “Nothing should be this cold,” he said, finally. “It’s… There’s got to be some kind of law of physics against this.”

Lance’s laugh actually sounded right this time. “Thermodynamics don’t work like that,” he said. “Pretty sure you took a couple of classes on that at some point.” 

“I’ve decided they’re bullshit, this weather is bullshit, and if we beat Zarkon—”

“When we beat Zarkon,” Lance corrected. He’d probably cross his arms if he hadn’t already done that to brace against the cold. 

Keith looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “ _ When _ we beat Zarkon, I’m never going anywhere it gets colder than seventy degrees.”

“It was colder than that in your desert shack at night,” Lance pointed out, which may have been true, but that didn’t mean Keith was going to back down. 

“You were there for one night; how would you know?”

“Don’t know if you remember— Wait, no, you don’t! Imagine that! But I  _ did _ go to the Garrison.” Lance was never going to let him live that down. “As in, the place that  _ happened  _ to be in the same desert your shack was in! It got a bit chilly at night.”

“Deserts shouldn’t be allowed to get cold,” Keith said. “Nowhere should be allowed to be cold.”

Lance shrugged. “Eh, I like it, honestly. Though it’s probably because I overheat really easily. My parents almost had heart attacks over my temperature when I was younger. Whenever I get cold, it’s like my body overcompensates and cranks up the temperature.” He sighed theatrically. “I guess you could say I have a warm disposition. Or maybe I’m too hot to handle.”

Keith snorted. “Bullshi—” He was cut off by Lance wrapping Keith’s hand in his.

“See,” Lance said triumphantly. He frowned. “It’d be more obvious if you weren’t wearing the gloves, though.”

“No thanks. They’re barely protecting my hands as it is.” Keith stared down at his and Lance’s hands. “Wish I had my armor.”

“Yeah, considering it makes the vacuum of space feel comfy-cozy, it could probably handle some snow.”

“If we’d had more warning, then—” Keith cut himself off, looking down at Lance’s hands, then at Lance’s clothes, which definitely were not paladin armor.

“Why.”

Lance looked at him in confusion, to which Keith responded by gesturing at the entirety of his being. After a few seconds, his expression cleared. “Oh.”

“Yes,  _ oh _ .” Keith said. “Why aren’t you wearing your armor?”

“Lost it in the wash?” Lance suggested, a sheepish grin on his face.

Keith stared him down, unamused. 

“Okay, so after things went banana bread with the Klevun, we never actually had time to get back to the castle. Because it was pretty much guaranteed that you’d freeze to death before we found you.”

“Are you sure I haven’t already?”

“Eh, you look pretty alive to me,” Lance said, bumping Keith’s shoulder with his. “Your eyebrow’s doing that thing where it jumps all over the place, and that’s proof enough that you’re still kicking.”

Keith frowned, then grimaced as he felt his eyebrows knit together. Knowing Lance, he’d immediately—

“Ha! See, there they go.”

“You’re the worst,” Keith said, leaning back against the wall. “Actually, I’m fine freezing to death. Feel free to just go back down that tunnel at any time.”

“Nah. You’d miss me too much,” Lance replied, leaning more heavily against Keith’s side. “You’re stuck with me. That’s what happens when you have friends.” 

Keith huffed out a breath, but didn’t contest it. “Any strategies to get us out of this mess yet?” He asked instead.

Lance shrugged. “Well, the team knows where we are. All they need to do is get Yellow to tunnel us out.” He paused. “Without burying us under a pile of rocks,” he tacked on. “In the meantime, we can just chill.”

Keith didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting to the bad pun. Even when Lance nudged his shoulder, winking to ensure that Keith was fully aware of just how clever he thought he was. Why was this the hill Keith’s feelings had chosen to die on? Where they’d up and decided, yes, this is the person Keith should like, without his input? What had he ever done to deserve this?

“I mean, if you get too bored, I’m sure you’ll start training or something because you’re boring like that. Might help you warm up,” Lance said.

Keith closed his eyes. This was the person he’d developed feelings for. Why. “Except the sweat will freeze to my skin, and the freezing air will make my throat hurt like hell.”

“Really?” Lance looked genuinely surprised, then thoughtful. “Oh yeah. Guess I never had to consider that outside of, like, theoretical traning and stuff. At the Garrison, I mean. Never got that cold back home. Probably why I loved swimming so much.” He sighed, an odd turn to his mouth that looked too much like a smile for how sad the expression seemed. “It’d be this shock to your system for the first few seconds, but then you’d adjust, and everything felt so nice and just… It was like feeling everything, but nothing, because the water was just the right temperature that if you let yourself float, everything would just disappear.” He chuckled. “Got into a bunch of trouble doing that, though. A wave would drag me under and my sister would panic, or I’d float too far out— God, I can still hear everyone lecturing me.” He turned to grin at Keith. “Not that it stopped me.”

Keith looked at him for a minute, overtaken by just how… how  _ Lance _ that was, and unable to look away. This was the person he’d developed feelings for. “No,” he said, staring at Lance with a look that was probably too fond, that should have given him away. “It wouldn’t.”

And Lance grinned at him. “Nope,” he said, popping the word. “Sometimes I’d try to wade into the water— get myself acclimated one step at a time just because it felt so weird— but that’s kind of impossible with the ocean. Waves are a thing. Sometimes you just have to dive in.”

Which was as close of a glowing neon sign reading, ‘Just Tell Him to His Face That You Like Him and Get It Out of The Way, You Huge Tool,’ as Keith was likely to get. So, ignoring the fact that the two of them would likely have to spend several very awkward hours in the same cave after his admission, Keith opened his mouth. “Lance, I—”

“Heck!” Lance swore. Or as much as Lance ever swore. “I got off topic! Okay, I was going to talk about survival training in the cold because you reminded me, but then I got distracted, and the conversation changed, and ADHD is kicking my butt. Point is! I do remember some things.” Lance jabbed a finger towards Keith, who stared at it in wary consternation. 

“Like?” Keith asked, not sure he liked where this was going. 

“I think that we’re about to become much closer friends,” Lance said, taking off his jacket. He gestured at Keith to do the same.

“Or we could not do that,” Keith said, tugging his jacket tighter around himself. “I like the idea of not freezing to death.”

“You really are a baby when it comes to the cold, aren’t you?”

Keith threw his jacket at Lance’s head.

“Perfect!” Lance said, once he’d gotten the jacket to stop clinging to his face like something out of a science fiction movie. Then, the worst possible scenario occurred.

Lance wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulder, pressed against his side, and started tucking the two jackets around them like blankets. Lance was trying to kill him. He had to be. There could be no other explanation.

“I swear to god, you always freeze up like a lizard as soon as people try to take care of you,” Lance said, sounding too amused for his own good.

“Why a lizard?” Keith asked, instead of literally anything else he could have— should have— said.

“You’re a lot like a lizard, actually.” Lance let a shiteating grin take over his face, which was a sure sign he was about to be an ass. “I’d say a tokay gecko.”

Keith looked at him blankly. 

Lance grinned innocently, refusing to clarify. As if insulting someone who had no context was effective! At all!

“Why would— You know what? Never mind.” Keith had more pressing matters to deal with. “What is this?” He gestured at the jackets and Lance.

“It’s called sharing body heat so we don’t freeze to death,” Lance said, which, okay, fine, reasonable. Still, that didn’t mean Keith had done anything to deserve this. “Can I just—” Lance withdrew his arm and reached for Keith’s hand. When Keith didn’t pull away, he draped Keith’s arm around his shoulder, then let go and put his own arm around Keith’s. Then, he readjusted the jackets. “That should be better. Warmer, at least.” 

What had Keith done to deserve this. 

“You hanging in there?” Lance asked. His smile still looked self-satisfied, but it didn’t seem like his usual expression. It was a bit too on-edge, a little too— Was Lance worried? Is that what was happening?

Lance only seemed to get more tense as seconds passed, before Keith realised that he’d forgotten to answer the question. 

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I’m fine. Still freezing, but fine.”

“That’s good,” Lance said, and without seeming to think about it, he started to rub Keith’s shoulder. He grinned at Keith. “Don’t know what I’d do if I lost the opportunity to beat my rival once and for all.”

Keith groaned, and Lance’s smile only seemed to increase in wattage. “I thought we agreed that we’re friends.”

“Friendly rivals. Rivalling friends.”

“Fine,” Keith said, letting his head fall against Lance’s shoulder. “You’ll win if I freeze to death. Happy?”

Lance didn’t respond for a second. “Nah. That’d mean I had to use turf advantage. Not a fair fight,” he said, finally. “Looks like we’re just gonna have to keep fighting until one of us wins fair and square.”

Keith snorted. Leave it to Lance to forget that Keith had admitted his win a long while back. His memory was like a sieve that was allergic to bonding moments. 

“What?” Lance asked, his voice squawky like it always got when he thought Keith was insinuating something.

“Just wondering if you’d even notice if you won,” Keith replied. He’d never seen the point in lying when he didn’t have to.

“Of course I would! Who do you think I am?”

“Lance,” Keith said. An unfortunate, caring, self-sacrificial asshole who did everything he could to keep the team together, he didn’t say, but he thought it was implied.

 

* * *

 

Keith never really understood the classic staples of romance. The few movies he’d seen always came off as creepy, the books hadn’t had enough of a plot to grab his interest, and the last time he’d been on a date was a really awkward middle school dance. His date had walked off to play basketball in the corner halfway through. Keith, who’d been more into track, hadn’t seen the appeal. 

Fortunately, basketball didn’t seem as popular in space. Unfortunately, Keith still had about as much romantic acumen as a disassembled speeder. 

Still, if Keith was ever going to get the message across to Lance, he was going to have to be blatant about it. He’d confess, Lance would reject him, and he’d move on. 

Never mind the traitorous voice in the back of his head that suggested another possibility. Lance hadn’t even thought they were  _ friends _ until a short while ago. There was no chance that he— No. Lance would reject him, and that would be that. No matter how awkward things might be for a short while, they’d go back to being friends. They’d worked too hard for it. It would be fine.

But first, Keith had to make sure that Lance actually got the message. 

The opportunity came when they stopped at a planet similar enough to Earth that Coran and Hunk could use samples from its resources to synthesize things like the teams’ medications, Pidge’s estrogen, and food that was actually edible. It was like grocery shopping for biochemist-slash-engineers in space. 

Keith was pretty sure everyone caught their breath as soon as they touched down planerside. A planet that looked so much like Earth— mountains, trees, and all— was rare. Keith wasn’t expecting the cocktail of emotions that burst at the sight, all mixed and jumbled together. 

The thing was, space was beautiful in the same way the desert was beautiful. It seemed empty, and signs of life were few and far between, but it was defined by its infinite potential. Anything could be found, given enough time. But this planet seemed beautiful in the same way Earth was beautiful: something known, and solid, and reliable. But it wasn’t. Because it wasn’t Earth.

However, as Keith ventured further out, discovering a rocky cliff overlooking a vast ocean, he thought that it might do the trick anyway. The field of flowers leading up to the edge was just an added bonus.

He stared at the scene for a moment longer, taking in the way the waves crashed and broke, the wind just strong enough to cause a few decent swells and send clouds on a lazy path across the sky. Then, he opened a private comms line.

“Lance.”

“Keith?” The comms crackled with the sound of Lance yawning. “Is something up? Don’t tell me this planet’s actually inhabited by, like, poisonous slugs, or giant iguanas that use poisoned spines to attack their prey or something.”

“Why do you always jump to poison?”

“It’s one of the few things we haven’t had to deal with yet,” Lance explained. “I always figured poison would be involved at some point of my life, but eh, go figure. Plus, at this point explosions would just be cliché.” He paused, then when Keith didn’t respond, continued. “Alright, so assuming you haven’t passed out because of poison slugs, what’s up?”

“I just thought that you should probably see this,” Keith said, staring out at the ocean again. 

“Oh boy,” Lance said. There was a sound like he was shifting position. “Sounds ominous.”

“No,” Keith corrected, quick to respond, “it’s not like that. It’s something—”

“Keith, buddy,” Lance said, laughing, “one day you’re going to figure out that I’m messing with you before I have to explain outright.”

Keith snorted, rolling his eyes. “Maybe you just need to work on better jokes.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my jokes are purrfect.”

“Doesn’t work when you’re not in Blue,” Keith answered. “Bad pun. Go to jail.”

“Are you saying I need to face municipal—”

“Stop.”

“ _ Pun _ ishment?”

Keith groaned, sitting down on the cliff face. “I change my mind. Go back to napping.”

“Nope! You asked me to go look at something, so I’m being a good team member and taking your previous comments under consideration. Plus, according to the interface, I’m almost at your position.”

“Not denying the napping,” Keith noted.

“Listen,” Lance replied, “I need my beauty sleep to look this—” He cut off with an inhale, and Keith knew that if he hadn’t seen the cliff, he’d at least heard the waves. “Whoa.”

The comms cut out, but Keith didn’t have time to worry; not when he felt Lance walk up behind him to stand at his shoulder. 

“Whoa,” Lance repeated, just staring out at the ocean with wide eyes, a grin splitting his face. “This is…” He trailed off, and as he did, his smile faded. It was still on his face, but it was less… less  _ Lance _ . 

“What’s wrong?” Keith asked, staring up at him. 

Lance continued looking off into the horizon, smile still hanging on, if barely. “That obvious?”

Keith shrugged. Subtlety had never been Lance’s forte. 

Lance sighed, finally letting the expression go, and sat down beside Keith. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m glad you called me over. Trust me, I’ve missed this smell and the sounds and— I really, really miss the ocean, Keith. But this isn’t  _ my _ ocean.” Lance drew his knees up to his chest, tucking them beneath his chin. His gaze was still fixed on the water. “Is it weird that something can make me really happy and really sad at the same time?”

Keith thought about his shack. “No,” he answered, thinking of rocking back and forth on his front porch, staring out at the stars above. He looked at Lance, taking in his expression, his posture, who he was as a person, and he sighed. “No, I know what you mean.”

Lance reached out, scooped up a rock, and considered it. Then, after a long moment, he tossed it off the cliff. “Coran says on Altea it’d rain boiling rocks.”

Sounded about right. Sometimes Keith secretly wondered whether Altea was actually the interplanetary equivalent of a military training facility, considering everything Coran and Allura had said about it. 

“They’re never going to get that back,” Lance continued, “and I just can’t— I can’t imagine that, Keith. I can’t imagine having no possible way of ever seeing home again. Of having to just keep making do forever.” He sighed. 

Keith bit the inside of his cheek, trying to come up with the words to help. After all, he was responsible for dragging Lance to the cliff in the first place. However, after a moment, the unexpected occurred.

Lance laughed. 

“Okay, I need to get over myself,” he said, stretching out. “For now, I’m done complaining. It actually smells like the ocean, there are wave noises, and…” Lance reached out, and for a moment, Keith thought he was about to grab his hand. Instead, Lance tugged at the grass near him. “Actual grass that actually smells alive. Not just rock, rock, and more rock.” He leaned back. 

Keith felt his face scrunch up in confusion. “I thought you were upset,” he said, slow and precise.

Lance puffed out a breath. “Just homesick. It happens, but I’m not gonna let it ruin this. If I let myself get too caught up in my own thoughts, I’ll just spiral, and if I’m being honest, I’m really not down for that.” He turned to look at Keith, smiling. “I mean, I did need to vent to get it out of my system for a bit, but after it’s out, I can just change the subject and avoid dunking my head into a huge pile of gross feelings.”

Keith had never liked irony much, but he could appreciate it. “I can understand that,” he admitted. “The homesickness, too.”

“Really?” Lance asked, fiddling with a blade of grass. He looked less skeptical than he might have a while back, but still not wholly convinced. 

“Yeah,” Keith said, leaning back. “Honestly, I loved the desert. Don’t make that face.” He frowned at Lance’s expression, then continued. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel as strongly as you do about Earth, though,” he admitted. Home, Keith had decided, was a weird, weird concept where everyone was loud, inconvenient, embarrassing, and took up more space than humanly possible. And that wasn’t Earth. 

Earth wasn’t where Pidge would suddenly dash through the hall, whooping and calling for Hunk and Coran. Not where Shiro would show up in the training room and ask if Keith had eaten yet in a tone that said Hunk already told him the answer. Not where Allura gave tips about Altean martial arts forms and stances to him just because she thought ‘he might be interested’. Not where Coran would lecture him about the intergalactic customs regarding weaponry whenever he so much as glimpsed Keith polishing his knife. Not where Lance would slide into the seat next to him at meals, gesturing as widely as possible and almost whacking him on accident every time he wanted to emphasize his point, eyes lit up and grin spread across his face. 

“I loved it, but… I love being in the castle. I love being part of Voltron. I love being here. With everyone.” Keith steeled himself. “With y—”

And of course that was when a fleshy sail breaks the surface of the water, shining, massive, and attached to a gigantic behemoth of a creature. It keened, then submerged itself once more. There was silence.

Keith wasn’t sure when he and Lance had scrambled to their feet, or when Lance had started yelling about how cool that was, and if Keith thought it was a mammal like a whale, and what even was that? Keith did know that at some point he’d bent over and started laughing because he could take a goddamn hint from the universe when he saw it, even if it had taken him four tries. 

“Hey, are you alright?” Lance asked him, eventually, his expression still lit up with excitement, and Keith felt like he’d never be able to stop loving him, but that was okay.

“Yeah,” Keith managed. “I’m okay.” And he would be. He’d be Lance’s friend and nothing else, and he would be okay. They’d be okay.

 

* * *

 

Lance was ridiculous. Sitting next to his bed— not on it because god forbid any clothes other than pajamas touch its pristine surface— he jabbed a finger into the air yet another time and leaned even more heavily against Keith’s shoulder. “I’m just saying, if Pidge has time to modify literally every part of Green, she has time to add voice changers to the comms. Or at least clean up the way it deals with interference.”

“Pidge is going to tape you to the ceiling one day, and I’m just going to stand by and let her.”

“Nah,” Lance said, bumping his shoulder into Keith’s. “You love me too much.”

And fuck if that wasn’t true. “Yeah, I do.”

Keith meant it to come out that same way Lance’s words had, a soft moment of teasing with a pseudo-sincere give and take. But Keith had never been good at hiding his emotions, and Lance, when he paid attention, was way, way too adept at reading them. It was just one hell of a misfortune that the one time he chose to pay attention was in that moment.

Lance turned to him, mouth agape as he let out a hesitant laugh, and Keith would have thought he was about to make a joke if not for the way he was searching Keith’s face like there was an answer he really, desperately needs hidden there. “You… do?” he asked, his voice odd, stuck between pitches like it wasn’t sure whether to turn the question into a joke or an acknowledgement. 

“Yeah,” Keith repeated, forcing himself to meet Lance’s eyes because no matter how hard it was, Lance needed to  _ know _ . “I do. I love you.”

“Oh,” Lance said, mouth agape. “That’s nice.”

Yeah, no. Keith got up to leave, only for Lance to reach out and grab his hand. 

“That’s not— Sorry, I just…” Lance’s expression was near impossible to read, surprise, confusion, and something that looked close to affection all warring with each other. “You love me.” He finished.

Keith bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry if it makes working with me awkward, and I’ll back off for a bit if it makes you—”

“No takebacks,” Lance said. Then, trying to use Keith’s arm to pull himself up  _ without telling Keith _ , he ended up pulling him down and crashing their heads together. “Ow, okay, bad plan. Shit.”

“Did you just swear?” Keith asked, squinting at him in bafflement. “You never—”

“Okay, way to change the subject!” Lance exclaimed. “I was— Okay, I was trying to be cool there, but obviously trying to improve upon perfection just spoils the broth or something, and okay, mixing metaphors here. Anyway! What I was trying to do is bring us to the same level, which, okay, partial success, and tell you that I kind of, maybe love you too.”

Keith blinked at him for a long moment, mouth opening, then closing. “Kind of, maybe—”

“Definitely love you too,” Lance completed. 

And that was. Well. That was definitely… a thing, wasn’t it? The tension began to leave Keith, and he leaned into Lance, his forehead dropping onto Lance’s collarbone. “Well, that’s… that’s good,” Keith said.

Lance laughed, wrapping his arms around Keith. “You almost leave when I say ‘that’s nice,’ but ‘that’s good,’ is just fine? Is that how this goes?”

“That’s exactly how this goes,” Keith responded, laughing a bit in response. “Haven’t you been paying attention?” 

“Apparently not closely enough,” Lance said. 

“Fair enough,” Keith responded, prompting an offended squawk from Lance. “You were the one who said it!”

“You’re not supposed to agree! We were having a moment!”

Now  _ that _ was funny. “Oh really,” Keith said. “Would you say it was a bonding moment? One where you might be…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Keith gestured towards the way Lance was holding him. 

“Oh my god,” Lance said, “I change my mind.” Despite his words, he just squeezed Keith closer. 

“I thought you said no take backs?” Keith asked. 

“Well, if I said it, it must be true,” Lance said, his face crinkling with an almost-laugh. 

Keith looked up at him, thinking about how this wonderful disaster of a person loved him, and let out a breath. “Can I kiss you?” He asked.

Lance’s expression shifted to something like a deer in headlights, but then he smiled. “We’re literally holding each other right now. Do you really have to—”

“Yes.”

Lance looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. Yes. Of course you can.”

And that was all the invitation Keith needed before he was cupping Lance’s face and pressing his mouth to his. The ensuing kiss was terrible and lasted for all of four seconds.

“Okay,” Lance said, breaking away. “Can we try that again with less teeth?”

Keith grimaced. “Yeah. Sorry about—”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Lance responded, taking Keith’s hand in his. “It’s fine. Not everybody can be as good as—”

“Why are you like this?” Keith asked, exasperated. 

“Hey, you’re the one who  _ loves _ someone like this,” Lance pointed out. “So maybe you should ask why you’re like that.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Keith said, reaching to pull him in again. Practice would make perfect. It always did. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout outs to: Stray Italian Greyhound by Vienna Teng, the song that basically drove this fic from its conception; my sometimes co-writer, Stella, who proofread this for me; Alex, who actually gets cold and was willing to describe what that feels like to me; and Micky and Frey who, as always, encourage and enable me far too much.


End file.
